


The Loneliest Number

by noodlerdoodler



Series: Hargreeves Appreciation Week [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Rewrite, Canon Temporary Character Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Good Sibling Luther Hargreeves, Multi, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, The Umbrella Academy (TV) Spoilers, Veteran Klaus Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26036794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlerdoodler/pseuds/noodlerdoodler
Summary: None of them were any match for nukes, not even the atomic bomb herself. Would it be quick enough they’d feel no pain this time around? It seemed naïve to hope. But he did.“Hey,” Without warning, Vanya was in front of him, “When did you last sleep, Five? You keep zoning out.”All he managed was a mumbled, “Not important.”How could something as insignificant as sleep matter right now? His entire family was dead. They weren’t children anymore, they’d grown up and left him behind, but it was undoubtedly them slumped in the remains of the house that had broken them. Blood still trickled from Diego’s unmoving form, mocking him silently. He must’ve been minutes too late. He’d done this to all of them. He'd failed them.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Series: Hargreeves Appreciation Week [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884436
Comments: 17
Kudos: 468





	The Loneliest Number

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [See the Stars Come Joining](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900150) by [TheSevenUmbrellas (RosyPages)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosyPages/pseuds/TheSevenUmbrellas). 



He should’ve listened to the old man. He was right- just like always. How insufferable.

Five had shaken off his refusal to let him time-travel and run away from home, jumping a few years into the future. He’d almost laughed out loud as he looked around the people filling the streets, the shop fronts passing by, and bathed in his own success. Not ready? The old man was a complete fool. He looked around to see how everything had shifted and changed around him. It was now a hot sticky summer. Pleased with his success, Five was eager to push himself further.

He jumped forward again, peeling back the years like the skin of an orange, and now it was winter, the street blanketed by a layer of pure white snow. It was as if the entire city had been tucked away for the night. Not interesting enough to stick around. Quickly, Five jumped forward and then stumbled to a stop, scuffing his shoes. He backed up a little, looking around.

Nothing. The future was absolutely nothing.

Rubble lined the streets. What used to be storefronts had been reduced to nothing, just the empty frames of buildings and plumes of smoke. It was like an atomic bomb had gone off. Turning around, Five couldn’t see any signs of life anywhere and before he could even process what he was doing, his feet were pounding against what remained of the sidewalk. He needed to get back home- he- he needed to warn them all before it was too late.

He ran past burn-out cars and crumbled buildings, frantically trying to get away from it all. Until he saw something that caught his attention and skidded abruptly to a stop. The Academy. His home. Like the rest of the city, it hadn’t survived the blast. The gates were swinging in the wind, hanging wide open as if to welcome him home, and the glass of the doors had shattered.

Crushed underneath the rubble, the bodies of his siblings were cold to touch.

* * *

The second time he thought he’d be able to handle it. Nothing could be worse than the apocalypse.

Or so he’d thought.

As he stumbled out of the alley, he was drawn to the sound of yelling and shots being fired. The others had been lost somewhere along the way and Five was alone again. How had this happened? He’d been so sure that he’d calculated the jump correctly.

Somebody yelled for him to get down but the sound was alien to him, looking around frantically for any signs of familiarity. The loud explosion threw him off his feet, as something whizzed past his head and barely missed him. Like a rag-doll, like a child, Five crumpled under the force.

When he was back on his feet, he saw that he wasn’t alone: not this time. Dressed head to toe in black, (thank god it wasn’t white this time), Vanya seemed to be in control of her ability. She used it to detonate the calibre before it could impact anyone. Klaus pushed forward an army of ghosts, while Luther jumped in front of him to shield him from a wave of fire. In the distance, a semi-solid figure was grabbing soldiers from the roof like they were nothing more than toys.

Everyone was here. Even Allison was rumouring some soldiers, she never did that anymore, and Diego leapt from a tank to greet him. But none of this was right- it shouldn’t be here. There was never a nuclear holocaust in 1963. How had Five managed to screw up so badly again? The old man was right.

 _You’re not ready_. It seemed like he would never be ready.

And when Hazel gave him the chance to jump out of the timeline again, Five barely hesitated. He could save his family again- he could- his confidence faltered at the idea of it. How many timelines had they died in because of his actions? Even if he somehow navigated away from nuclear war, the siblings he could see right now would always be killed.

He tried not to picture their insides splattered across the street. The old man was right.

Five descended into the freezing depths and resurfaced an acorn.

* * *

Frowning to himself, Five tried his best to push away the memories that floated up from his subconscious. He buried them back down, heaped mud over them, and hoped they wouldn’t crawl out of their shallow graves again. He needed to focus if he was going to do this.

“My cult is gonna be so pissed. Five! I told them we had until 2019,” Klaus whined, always focusing on the minute details of life. As if Five could’ve done something about the impending apocalypse- as if he wasn’t already trying to do something about it.

As if he hadn't already seen the consequences of his inaction. 

_Klaus, his eyes glazed over, completely empty of all life. His hand splayed across the rubble, as if he was reaching out through the timeline for help. An umbrella encased in a circle on his forearm._

“We have until Monday,” Five told him, flatly.

He wondered if anyone else was finding it difficult to breathe in here. Maybe cracking a window open would alleviate the tightness in his chest. He glanced over at the nearest one and found that it was already wide open, air flowing in from the dusty Dallas street. Huh. It was probably the humidity then and he couldn’t do anything about that. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

The ringing in his ears seemed to be growing louder, probably just another side effect of jumping so far backwards in time. Jumping backwards was meant to be impossible, (without a briefcase), according to his father. Maybe that’s what he should’ve told the old man, instead of letting _Homer_ roll off his tongue. It would be nice to tell him he was wrong about something.

“Five?” Somebody seemed to be calling his name from the next room, “Are you still with us?”

He blinked a few times and the room swam back into focus. Luther was frowning at him.

“Just thinking,” Five amended with a tight smile, “Not something you idiots would know about.”

Nobody laughed. Not even Klaus, giddy and drunk. At least Luther stopped staring at him and just looked away, concern still dancing in his blue eyes. Like there was anything this universe could throw at him that Five couldn’t handle with gentlemanly ease. Twice now he’d faced the end of the world and gotten away without so much as a scratch on him. This week would just make a third. He’d been thirteen, alone, and faced with the corpses of his family. And he’d dealt with it. 

When had it gotten so hot in here?

His brother spared him a glance, his eyebrows knitted together in an unreadable expression. As Five shot him a look back, he observed how Diego’s chest rose and fell, feeling a wave of relief he didn’t know he was searching for.

_”Five, you sick son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?”_

Diego had no idea that he’d be dead in six days, blown to smithereens, along with the rest of them. No matter how good he considered himself in combat, his knives were no match against nuclear bombs. None of them were any match for nukes, not even the atomic bomb herself. Would it be quick enough they’d feel no pain this time around? It seemed naïve to hope. But he did. 

“Hey,” Without warning, Vanya was in front of him, “When did you last sleep, Five? You keep zoning out.”

All he managed was a mumbled, “Not important.”

_How could something as insignificant as sleep matter right now? His entire family was dead. They weren’t children anymore, they’d grown up and left him behind, but it was undoubtedly them slumped in the remains of the house that had broken them. Blood still trickled from Diego’s unmoving form, mocking him silently. He must’ve been minutes too late. He’d done this to all of them. He'd failed them._

Among the roaring flames, Five could hear distant voices. Like somebody was calling out to him. Trying to run to them, he found that his feet were stuck to the floor and that his muscles were paralysed. He couldn't move an inch. Why was it, that no matter what he tried or how hard he worked, he was always ended up failing? His family always died.

“- listen to me, okay? You’re here and you’re safe.”

It seemed that Vanya had shifted into Klaus, his brother now gripping both of his arms tightly. Trying to ground him. What was he doing out here in the apocalypse? Five had literally just seen his corpse. It had been staring straight ahead as if it was looking for something. Looking for him? He doubted it. 

“Hm? Would you like a bubble bath?”

Blinking, Five suddenly found that he was back in the mangy TV store, upper floor. And his brother was holding onto him, pulling him back down to earth, and smelled strongly of whiskey. Worry was scribbled across his face, which made a nice change from his relaxed giddy expression before. It was about time Klaus started to take things seriously. 

He frowned, “Are you drunk?”

“Would. You. Like. A. Bubble. Bath?” Klaus stressed each word, as if he was trying to explain the concept of the alphabet to a very small child. 

He really was there in front of him, in the flesh. Alive, breathing, and wasted. They were at Elliott’s place, where they’d set up camp, with the rest of their siblings gathered in the room. All of them were here and they were safe. They still had six days to fend off the apocalypse through whatever means necessary and Five was determined not to let them down this time.

"No, I don't want a _fucking_ bubble bath," He rolled his eyes. 

Whoever he had to kill- no, wait, that was commission policy- or whatever he needed to do, Five would do it without hesitation if it meant that his family would survive. So, he ignored their strange looks, took a shaky breath, and steered the conversation back in the right direction. There wasn’t time to work through anyone’s personal issues right now, especially Five’s.

Once he saved them all, perhaps.

* * *

It was a simple enough task: get back to the alley in the allocated time.

But the Hargreeves had never been the best at following instructions. Or meeting deadlines for that matter. _How is the Umbrella Academy supposed to save the world when we can't even get to missions on-time?_ His father, his biggest critic, never strayed far from his mind. Still, Five had been telling himself repeatedly that even his idiotic siblings should be able to manage this one small task. Especially since the fate of the entire world relied on it. All they had to do was show up. 

He was stupid to trust them with it. He should’ve known it would end up like this.

The big guy had shown up, just like he had promised, and was now waiting expectantly with Five as the minutes ticked by. He watched them race past on his watch, cursing himself for not rounding up the Umbrella Academy himself. Maybe if he’d done it, maybe if he’d done things differently… If they all ended up dying here, it would be all his fault.

Only Klaus ended up showing, projectile vomiting violently all over the alleyway as soon as he arrived. God only knew what surviving purely on a cocktail of whiskey, vodka, and gin had done to his internal organs. No wonder he couldn’t hold down lunch.

Five stood there and watched as they ran out of time. He’d killed his family again. Again. 

Turning around, he stumbled back a few feet when he realised that he was back. Somehow, (had he jumped again?), he was back in the apocalypse. The 2019 apocalypse. Smoke filled his lungs and he could taste it in the back of his throat, gritty soot sticking there. He couldn’t see anything but destruction for miles, the remaining foundations of his home crumbling underneath his shoes as he took another step back. Then, he collided with something solid and panicked, instinctively swinging a fist backwards. 

“Hey, Five, buddy, it’s okay-“ Luther’s voice. But he was dead.

He’d seen his corpse, wrapped in his large overcoat and gloves, with a bloody prosthetic eyeball clutched in his fist. _The eyeball, the eyeball, it was what connected it all. Whoever owned that eyeball had killed his family._ To the touch, Luther was cold. All the warmth and life had drained out of him. There was nothing in him that made him ‘Luther’ anymore. He was just a body. A dead body. 

Five was going to die out here. He was destined to die alone, the last boy on Earth. His own fault.

_You're not ready. An acorn doesn't become an oak overnight. You sick son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?_

Dead Luther told him: “Deep breaths, little man.”

His knees going weak under him, Five sucked in air and started spluttering. He wheezed as he collapsed onto the ground, trying to cough the soot out of his lungs, and took a few long breaths. Exhaling eased the pain in his chest a little. He hadn't even realised that he'd been holding his breath, his airway shutting down as a panic response. 

Slowly, his surroundings started to come back to him. There was a strong scent of ethanol combined with fresh vomit filled his nostrils, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust. At least the smell of smoke seemed to be wavering now. He could feel the hard ground underneath him, flat and neat, nothing like it had been in the apocalypse. He wasn’t there. Not anymore.

“Okay?” Luther was frowning at him, his hands resting on Five’s shoulders.

For once, Five resisted the urge to shrug him off and instead exhaled heavily, tipping his head back. None of it had been real. Luther wasn’t dead, he was real and solid and _breathing_ and looking him in the eye in a way that corpses couldn’t manage.

"Classic PTSD, saw it all the time back in 'Nam," Klaus was talking to nobody, flailing his arms around to emphasise his point. 

Neither of them paid him any attention. Still- it was nice to hear his voice. 

“I’m fine,” Even Five was surprised by how his voice trembled, “Just tired of these assholes.”

To his shock, Luther pulled him in close and gave him a firm hug. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a hug from anyone, even putting aside the half decade he’d spent in the apocalypse. It must’ve been when he was eight or nine and had reluctantly let Vanya hug him. Never a big fan of physical contact, Five hadn’t hugged any of his siblings since they’d been reunited. Now that he was wrapped in his brother’s warm arms, resting his head on his chest so that he could hear his heartbeat, he wondered why he’d always wriggled out of hugs as a kid.

"Where did you go?" Luther asked, silencing his protests before he could even start, "Five, you completely zoned out and started freaking out. We thought you were having some kind of episode. Where did you go?" 

"The future. It's shit by the way," Five mumbled into his brother's shirt. 

It was nice to be close to somebody that wasn’t a corpse or a mannequin. A real-life human (half ape?) person.

Somebody that held him and didn’t let go. 

* * *

Once again, his family had been killed right in front of his eyes. Shot dead on the floor of a barn, this time, in just a few minutes.

And once again, only Five would remember it ever happened. His siblings would live happily without the knowledge that they had been dead for a few minutes in 1963, their lights snuffed out. He was almost jealous of them for being the ones that had died. At least they never ended up paralysed, surrounded by their family's corpses, frantically trying to escape. After seeing it for the third time, he was sure that he'd rather be one of the dead ones rather than the living one who had to watch it all. But Five didn’t have time to process that right now.

“Little baby Five!” Klaus rushed to throw his arms around him, nearly knocking him over, “Are you doing okay?”

Everybody else was occupied, murmuring quietly to each other about what had just happened. They'd never know the full truth, of course. How close they had come to death, touching it with their fingertips. _An acorn doesn't become an oak overnight_. Even Diego was quiet for once, letting Vanya rest her head on his shoulder. And Five had drawn the short straw, being tackled by his drunk as a skunk little brother. 

“Seriously, are you high?” Five retorted, shoving him away, “We just stopped the apocalypse! I’ve never been better.”

“I just thought… it might be triggering. The gunshots-”

Immediately, Klaus’s face sank and guilt curled in his brother’s stomach like a snake. The shove caused him to stumble away, casting his gaze down at the floor to disguise the hurt on his face. Rubbing his upper arm, Klaus turned away from him. He wasn't drunk or high or trying to be funny, Five realised suddenly. His brother was trying to comfort him. No, wait, Klaus was trying to empathise with him. An alien feeling. Warmth still lingered from where his brother had tried to hug him, tried to make sure he was okay. Because he knew what it was like.

The flashbacks. The nightmares. The sounds and feelings that set it off.

Klaus knew.

“Thanks,” Five said, quietly, “Are,” He’d never been good with feelings, “Are you okay, Klaus?”

His brother perked up, turning back to him with a coy look on his face. The two of them had never been particularly close, even when they were little kids, because Five had always looked down on him. He had looked down on all of them, in fact, and viewed himself as superior. Nowadays, he wasn't really sure why. They were idiots, sure, but they were his idiots. The ones he had sacrificed everything he had to in order to protect them. Often, he got so caught up in keeping them alive that he forgot why he was doing it. But his brother…

He cared about him.

“It’s been a crappy few days,” Klaus admitted, “Can we go home now?”

Yes. Nothing was stopping them from returning to their own time. There was only one thing left for Five to do before they could leave the 60s behind and jumping back to the future. It was going to be the hardest thing he'd done the entire time that they'd been here. Slowly, unsurely, Five stepped forward. And awkwardly, having no practice in the science of hugging, he wrapped his small arms around Klaus’s neck and pulled his gangly, _stupid_ brother down so that he could hug him. Klaus let out a surprised noise but happily leaned down, looping an arm around Five which came to rest on his upper back. He patted his back fondly. 

When they drew back, Klaus was giving him a lopsided grin, like a dog that had just been petted. He seemed genuinely pleased to be on the receiving end of some brotherly affection. Maybe it was because they'd all spent so many years starved of anything like love. 

“Oh, I do so love a family bonding moment,” He sighed.

"I'm glad you're not dead," Five said, directing it at all of his siblings. 

From the stoop, Vanya smiled kindly at him and Diego gave him a slow nod. Acknowledging it. 

As for Allison, she had already been walking towards him and now reached his side. He didn't like the motherly, caring look that she was giving him as she took her turn hugging him. Oh, great, were they turning into a hugging family now? Five wasn't sure that he was ready for that yet. It had definitely been the weirdest two weeks of his entire life and the Hargreeves becoming an emotional bunch was bound to push him over the edge into insanity. When he was released from his sister's gentle squeeze, he almost wished he was back in the apocalypse.

 _Almost_. Though, he was much more of an oak tree than an acorn now. 

His sister smiled at him, cupping his face in her hands, "You saved us, Five. You saved all of us."  
  
Immediately, Five scowled and jerked away from her gentle touch. He knew, deep down, that her words should've been affirming and reassuring. That he should've been happy that he had achieved his goal at last- Five had managed to save his family. That was all he'd ever wanted. But as she spoke, all he could think about was how still her dead body had been. Frozen in time, no longer jumping forwards or backwards. It could happen again. His family still wasn't safe, not really. 

_The loud explosion nearly threw him off his feet, as something whizzed past his head and barely missed him. It took all he had in him not to crumple and hit the ground, shielding himself._

"Let's go home," Five managed a small smile and he didn't protest when Klaus flung one lanky arm around him, the other around Allison. He didn't even argue when his brother pulled him in close and they started a haphazard three-legged race towards the rest of their siblings. Everybody was here, all six of them, but it didn't ease the aching pressure in Five's chest. 

He was scared of what future might await them in 2019. 


End file.
